Can the university require each online class have every student meet once, face to face but through a glass divider, with the instructor?
I mean, we don't have space to do so. We're moving about 1/4 of classes online, and scaled up all the other classes to bigger rooms where possible, and the remaining classes are split - half in person, half synchronous zoom, then switch by day.
I suppose the entirely online schools, like the CA system, could do that, but I'm sure the cast majority of their students are going to be possibly far away at their parents' house.
That's got to be too boring for words.
Send a few instructors on roadshows across the country, so as more efficiently to have box-checking face-to-face sessions and tick the box.
Some kind of exam procedure that doesn't work across distances readily. Software that won't work outside of the U.S.
This seems like the kind of thing that slow moving court systems are ideal for. Stall things with some kind of claim of capricious administrative rulemaking until classes are in person again at which point it's moot. Come on lawyers, do something useful!
Yeah, I'm sure it will get tangled up in the courts. But I'm also sure there are international students on super-tenuous paperwork deadlines, and this kind of smoke and confusion could wreck it for them.
Yes, it's one more thing on top of years of making things worse.
9 and 10 are fully accurate.
This is another one of the policies that highlights how committed the administration is to its anti-immigrant (and to a lesser but still serious extent, anti-higher-ed) agenda. International students generally pay full-freight tuition. They subsidize the cost of college for US-born students. There is absolutely no economic rationale whatsoever for this policy.
Ok, I have a question.
Just now I admitted to a black friend of mine that we are planning on visiting my problematic in-laws, and it made me cringe really badly to admit that yes, we are. They're not overt MAGA hat wearers, more like "politics is distasteful, pass the country club sauce" who will vote for lower taxes. But still, we'd been talking about how failure to be against Republicans is complicity, and the conversation turned to whether or not we'd boycott relatives.
How unethical is it to vacation with problematic relatives? Does the current climate demand that one boycott? Since it made me cringe to say it to her, I feel like I should think it through.
Is it sufficient if I vow to myself to try to change hearts & minds? What if changing hearts & minds sounds absolutely miserable and I really just want to keep my head down while the cousins play with each other?
What are the ethical guidelines for having shitty family members and still wanting to keep your activist cred intact?
It's just generic catsup, isn't it?
Anyway, I've always thought it rude to ask, but I'm pretty sure that at least some black people have horrible relatives too.
True, but they mostly don't vote to perpetuate systemic racism.
I realize this is easy for me to say because I won't be there, but I think you're honor-bound to blithely, persistently, and frankly use conversational openings to say things that you know are accurate and that you know they'll disagree with. Not just call them out if they say bad stuff, but actively, matter-of-factly model what responsible humanity looks like. "I was really relieved when the kids' playmates were able to join them for socially distant play dates. Their parents have been hassled a lot by racist strangers just for simple things like going out in public and I've been really concerned about their safety given the anti-immigrant environment the president is stoking."
But I'm feeling more confrontational about this stuff than I basically ever have in my entire life, so take that for what it's worth.
We had a reluctant gathering with horrible relatives this weekend. By "the current climate" do you mean social justice awakening or pandemic? We have almost completely avoided interacting with said relatives because they have been totally irresponsible on top of being Trumpbots. One posted at the other place that they don't know anyone voting for Biden and don't know anyone who's had COVID and don't know anyone supporting the protests which are all blatant lies. If they weren't so pandemically irresponsible it might be more awkward to say we don't enjoy talking to them because of their views but I guess the two are highly correlated.
Country club sauce is mayo, duh.
In happier news, my one-woman BLM protest continues to go well. I try to do about 20 minutes at a major intersection most days. I get 92-95% positive responses. The negative ones have just been idiots; nothing violent.
The best was the old white guy who demanded to know whether I had ever "gone to the inner city" and then went into an "I'm not racist, but..." diatribe on Black crime. Unfortunately the light changed before I could point out to him that if HE'D ever been to "the inner city," he would have doubtless witnessed one of the approximately eight billion Black community anti-violence vigils, speeches, gatherings, and marches that have been standards in Philadelphia for my entire life. (For grim reasons, let's not get that wrong, but it's manifestly not the case that Black people don't care about all types of crime!)
Relatives can be horrible to others in all sorts of ways. I don't see a bright line at "voting republican." I don't have any activist cred to lose, though.
The Trump-voting relatives I have are all safely located in districts where they are just running up the score with no chance of affecting the outcome and getting told not to vote for Trump by their children.
I think the difference is who feels the impact of their shittiness. Is their shittiness contained to their family, but they vote properly? Then it's private to the family whether an individual chooses to associate with them. Are they kind to their family, but vote R? Then the impact of their shittiness falls on strangers, so then maybe I have an obligation to make the issue more real to the shitty relative.
To 20.2: both, plus upcoming elections.
Anyway, 19 is probably a sound way to feel like I'm doing penance for this.
Don't worry about hearts and minds unless you want to. Policies are more important, so vote, do what you can locally and at your university, and only shout at your relatives if you feel like it. I do rather delight sometimes in pointing out how my mother's idiot vote for Trump in PA is affecting x y and z that she might care about, but I don't imagine it's changing her mind. More worried about wingnut sister being convinced COVID-19 is a hoax and infecting my parents out of carelessness.
Between this and the "hope everyone just gets numb to COVID tearing through everything" story, I'm starting to wonder if we'll genuinely have to ban the Republican Party as an inherently murderous organization at some point.
We kind of had this conversation with our daughter the other day. She's got some Trumpers in her life, and struggles to 'hold space' for them. She thinks they're brainwashed cult members, who will get over it when it's over. I don't think she's being realistic about their agency here, but I'm not going to argue with her about how she lives her life. There' a better than even chance that the Trumpers she is talking about are people of color, so white girl from the suburbs laying down the truth has it's own problems.
I don't think confrontation with relatives is worth much. Laughing at them behind their backs -- and, to a limited extent to their faces -- might work better.
To be clear, I wasn't suggesting that heebie say those things because they will shift her relatives' thinking. I highly doubt that they will. As they say, you can't reason someone out of beliefs that they didn't reason their way into.
The reasons to push back are:
1) You're challenging their (often unstated/unconscious) belief that your silence means that you agree with them.
2) You're practicing your own advocacy muscles, rehearsing for times in public meetings or other occasions when you will WANT to speak up because there will be a more vulnerable/marginalized person RIGHT THERE who is having to hear this crap and shouldn't.
3) But perhaps most importantly: You're modeling ethics for your children. I love this quotation from the late Ossie Davis:
"The only advice is a good example. You don't tell them [children] a whole lot of anything. You show them by doing. You teach values by making choices in their presence. They see what you do and they make judgments on it."
Making choices in their presence = speaking up even when it's uncomfortable, even when it's family.
Heebie,
I've unfriended (so far) four friends (two of them quite long-standing, one of those >30yr) for their racism and Trumpism. But those were -friends-. This is family. And nobody should tell you what to do about your family, I think. It's a personal thing. At the same time, I think you should be firm in asking for the things you need, both for yourself and your immediate family (esp. your kids). So for instance, firm guidelines on what your relatives are allowed to say around your children. Also, as I'm sure you know, "politics is disdainful, vote for lower taxes" *is* racist: it was concocted by Lee Atwater, as he attested late in his life when dying of cancer.
I'm skeptical that you can change their minds, and that modeling progressive behaviour will have any effect at all. If it were me, I don't know what i'd do, but for sure, I'd insist on ironclad rules of "no politics of any kind whatsoever" and enforce them with a heavy, heavy hammer. Just because, well, it would drive me *insane* to have to listen to right-winger drivel (and "lower taxes" qualifies).
I struggle with this, too. My father's in the same category as heebie's relatives, maybe a bit more racist but mostly just greedy. In a very limited sphere, he's a good guy: he takes care of family. He spends literally all his time taking care of my chronically ill and neurologically weakened mother, has done a lot for my aunt who always has income issues, etc.. But he has no empathy for anyone beyond that sphere, and has no capacity nor care to realize how that sort of attitude is negative sum.
I'm an only child. I figure I have a duty to not cut ties with him. I've made a lot of choices to make things financially easier for him. But I hate talking to him, and have weekly conversations with him only as a duty. He's trollish by attitude. I won't ever change his mind about things--maybe I can convince him that Trump is not in his own self interest, but even that's a stretch. I suppose I'll be trying to in a few months. Stupid electoral college.
Witt, what you're doing sounds great.
Ugh, sympathy on this one, heebie. Dad guilted us into visiting him and his girlfriend last weekend (outdoors) and insisted we meet her daughter and son in law. Dad explicitly instructed us to "make polite conversation," which was certainly odd, but in retrospect may have been an oblique heads-up. The son in law is a firefighter and was wearing a Blue Lives Matter shirt. Everybody made polite small talk, and now AJ and I are trying to figure out how little it will take for us to bail from future gatherings if anyone becomes the least bit more objectionable. I'm tempted to buy a bunch of Ts with social justice slogans to wear.
Easy for me to say, but I think visiting is OK, telling your kids that various relatives have unfortunate views is a requirement, and pushing back against stuff that will cost you peaceful sleep is good but optional. What's the goal? To say you disagree and express what you believe? Seems achievable. Winning hearts and minds is probably impossible. To punish them for their shitty views? Probably not very effective, but if their views are that shitty, maybe increased distance is not a bad thing. I think figuring out what you want may clear up what to do.
12: If they're in a safe district I'd say you're morally obligated to do everything you can to change their minds, or if that's not possible (it's rarely easy, and a logical argument is an ineffective way to do it, but that doesn't mean it's impossible), to depress their turnout and enthusiasm. "Safe district" - not just swing state but also heavily or lightly gerrymandered Congressional district, place where local elections are particularly close, etc. It's silly to base a family ethics question like this on these considerations but that's the system we live in. If they aren't in a safe district I'd say it's totally a matter of personal taste, but that cuts both ways. Bad politics might not be an adequate reason to avoid someone, but family connections might not be a sufficient reason to spend time with them.
Admittedly though, it's easy for me to say. My connections to right-wingers seem even more tenuous than yours. The rare times I've had to engage with stuff like this in the flesh, I haven't found it easy.
Our chancellor writes tonight: "We will explore all of our options, legal and otherwise, to counter the deleterious effects of these policies that impact the ability for international students to achieve their academic goals... we are moving quickly to ensure that we offer the proper balance of online and in-person classes so that our students can remain in the U.S. and satisfy their visa requirements, and that those students residing outside the U.S. can maintain their enrollment status."
I share no DNA in any amount with any Trump supporter, and I sympathize deeply with those who do. I endured eight years of bitter struggle under Bush and it was brutal. I don't know that there's a moral duty to boycott or try to change someone's heart, if only on the basis that it doesn't work.
12: Your relative presumably knows your political stance. If you boycott, they come away with the idea that "activist liberals are assholes". If you show up and act like the decent person that you are, they come away with the idea that "some activist liberals are decent people" .
Arguments don't change people's minds; events do. All you do is provide a framework for them to understand them when they occur.